Shinzo Abe’s underappreciated recovery

Believe it or not, Japan’s economy is now growing faster than that of the United States, the euro area and the United Kingdom. Last month, data published for Japanese gross domestic product (GDP) growth in the second quarter showed the economy expanded at a real annualized rate of 4 percent.

One must be careful about reading too much into a single number, especially because GDP figures are notoriously volatile. Nevertheless, the overall picture of a rather strong recovery – perhaps even a boom by some standards – is clear.

It is hard to avoid the conclusion that Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has made good on his promise to extricate Japan from the deflationary, low-growth trap it had been caught in for decades. Abenomics, as the prime minister’s economic policies have been dubbed by the media, is working.